Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(4)

and whatever other planes it touched. My grave-sight faded. The gray coating of the world washed away, as did the swirls of the Aetheric. And so did the feet.

I blinked as I clasped my shield bracelet back around my wrist. Releasing my grave-sight made dark shadows crawl over my vision—I couldn’t peer across planes without paying a price—but when I squinted I could make out the hol ow where I’d seen the feet. An empty hol ow. Or, at least, it looked empty, but I could stil feel the grave essence and the taint of magic lifting off the dead appendages. The essence raked at my shields like icy claws, trying to sink under my skin, into my mind. I shivered.

The feet were definitely there.

“John, we have a problem,” I said, leaning back and trying to shove my hands in my jean pockets—which were blocked by the rubber hip waders. I dropped my hands by my side as everyone looked at me. “There’s a pyramid of feet stacked in that hol ow. I counted four and at a guess, they are al lefts.”

One of the uniformed officers stepped forward. He lifted a long sticklike object with a glass bead on the end.

Spellchecker wand. He waved the wand over the hol ow.

The bead flashed a deep crimson to indicate malicious magic, but the glow was dim, the magic only traces of residual spel s.

residual spel s.

Stepping back, the officer shook his head. “No active spel s, sir.”

I stared at the empty-looking hol ow. “If they’re not hidden behind a spel , it has to be glamour.”

“Crap,” John said, and turned toward the cop beside him.

“Someone get the FIB on the phone. We’ve got a situation.”

The FIB, as in the Fae Investigation Bureau. Glamour was exclusively fae magic, which meant John had just lost jurisdiction.

I slouched in the front of John’s police cruiser, one foot on the dash, one hanging out the open door. I’d rather have been out of the car—or more accurately, out of the floodplain. The FIB had arrived and ruffled the cops’

feathers. In turn, the cops dashed around, trying to look busy. I was just trying to stay out of the way. But being in the car made me claustrophobic. Actual y, if I was honest with myself, it was more than that. Ever since the Blood Moon, being locked inside a car made me jumpy and made my skin itch. I had a sinking suspicion the sensation had something to do with the iron content in the metal. No wonder Falin drove that hot plastic convertible.

The thought of Falin Andrews made my gaze twitch toward the rearview mirror and the two FIB agents reflected in it. I’d met Falin a month ago when he’d been working undercover as a homicide detective on the Coleman case.

In truth he was a FIB agent—and a fae—and during the course of the case he’d ended up under my covers as wel .

But I hadn’t heard from him in several weeks. As the two FIB agents approached, I could see there was no shock of long blond hair or a towering swimmer’s build among the agents who’d responded to John’s cal . I wasn’t sure yet if I was grateful or disappointed.

“Miss Craft?” A woman in a tailored black power suit

“Miss Craft?” A woman in a tailored black power suit approached the car.

Here we go. I nodded, jerking my foot from the dash as I stood.

“I’m Special Agent Nori.” She didn’t extend her hand.

“You were the one who found the remains in the hol ow?”

Again I nodded, sliding my hands into my back pockets. It had been nearly an hour since I’d released my grave-sight, and my vision was returning to normal, but I stil squinted as I studied Agent Nori. She was a couple of inches shorter than me in her fat-heeled pumps, but she stood completely straight, making the most of her height. She wore her dark hair slicked back like shiny black armor and her piercing eyes were set close enough that her sharp features seemed to come to a point in the front of her face. Or at least, that’s what she looked like currently. Being an FIB

agent meant she was probably, but not necessarily, fae.

What she might look like under her glamour was anyone’s guess. I could have dropped my shields and found out, but one, it would have been rude, and two, and perhaps more important, my eyes glowed when my psyche peered across planes, so she would have been able to tel . I wanted to get out of here without any trouble.

“Can you tel me how you were able to pierce the glamour?” she asked, which was exactly the question I’d feared. Luckily I hadn’t been waiting idly. I’d been planning my answer.

“I was helping the police search for the remains of the . . .

remains, by using my grave magic. The glamour didn’t hide the grave essence emanating from the feet.” I left out that I’d been able to see them. Fae didn’t tend to like it when people could see through glamour. You could lose your eyes for less.

She pressed her lips together and jotted something on her notepad. “So you fol owed this . . . essence? Then what?”

“I tracked where the grave essence originated. I could

“I tracked where the grave essence originated. I could feel that the body parts were there. That no one else was able to see the feet was a good hint we might be dealing with glamour.” Al true—just not al of the truth.

Agent Nori clicked her pen closed. “Miss Craft, when you realized glamour was involved, you didn’t for a moment think it might have been more prudent to inform the FIB